Name | Abigail Martin |
District (Number Only) | 11 |
abigail4thebronx@gmail.com | |
What is your plan for getting the city back to work, particularly in its hardest hit sectors? What kind of workforce development programs do you envision that would provide access to communities of color and people with disabilities? | First and foremost, in order to reopen at full capacity we need to ensure everyone has equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines! I’m thrilled to be hosting a vaccine clinic in Wakefield on Friday May 7 with Shanequa Moore, candidate for City Council in District 12. To get the city back to work, including artists and culture workers, we need more innovative initiatives like the City Artists Corps that the administration recently announced. For long-term recovery we need to address the underlying issues, such as lack of child care, support for small businesses, climate injustice, and inaccessible transit, that have undermined economic recovery for too many New Yorkers, especially communities of color and people with disabilities. - I will ensure that our small businesses are not left to fend for themselves, and make sure that relief funds reach the small businesses, including ones in the arts and culture sector, that need it most. - We cannot have true economic prosperity in New York City without affordable child care for all working families. I will fight for affordable, accessible, high-quality child care for all. - To rebuild, our recovery also needs to be centered around an aggressive, equitable, and job-creating response to climate change. Climate change hits low-income communities of color first and worst. I will prioritize ensuring that our City’s ambitious climate goals are implemented rapidly, equitably, and with a focus on creating good, living-wage union jobs for our district, especially in environmental justice communities. - We must also build and maintain public transit infrastructure that is safe, reliable, accessible for all, and environmentally friendly. |
What is your plan for creating healthy stable communities? How do you envision enlivening vacant commercial and city owned spaces? | I am committed to making our neighborhoods more livable and resilient. All New Yorkers deserve to live, work, play, and worship in neighborhoods that support their physical, mental, and emotional health. To achieve that, we must focus on the social and economic conditions that promote health and well-being, including: - Develop safe and affordable housing. - Create safe, well-paying jobs. - Fight climate change and safeguard clean air and water. - Ensure equitable access to affordable, nutritious, culturally relevant foods. - Invest equitably in the places and people that make our city a vibrant, livable, culturally rich, economic powerhouse. As for vacant commercial and city owned spaces, I strongly support community land trusts and think the possibilities are endless when communities are able to determine how vacant land in their own neighborhood is used, including for cultural purposes, such as performance venues, spaces for public art, community gardens, or open green space. |
What do you foresee is the role of creative economies in supporting economic recovery in New York City particularly for communities most affected by environmental, housing, and health instability due to COVID including our aging, immigrant, and working class communities of color? | When I think of what makes New York City truly special, I think of our parks, museums, theaters, and libraries. As New Yorkers, we know that these spaces, and the people who bring them to life, are more than just tourist attractions—they are integral to our communities and our economy. Museums and galleries, performance venues, street art, and cultural spaces engage our diverse residents in vibrant cultural expression. As the D11 City Council Member, I will fight for equitable investment in the places and people that make our city a vibrant, livable, culturally rich, economic powerhouse. We must support our City’s diverse arts and cultural institutions, artists, and workers, and arts education: - Ensure that arts and culture recovery initiatives target not only larger institutions, but smaller venues, museums, and community cultural spaces that serve communities of color, immigrant communities, and those who work in this sector. - Advocate for the continuation of the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and the inclusion of artists and freelancers. - Prioritize funding for school and community-based arts education. |
What is your plan for the city’s school system and what is your vision of the role that arts in education plays? | Education is one of the most powerful tools for change in New York City. As a public school parent, with twins enrolled in P.S. 81 this past September, I am deeply committed to building an education system that is better for all children. I will fight for all public school students to receive an equitable, high-quality education. This must include prioritizing that all NYC public school students, including students with exceptional learning needs, and/or who are Multilingual Learners, receive quality, culturally-responsive, arts instruction that encompasses dance, theater, music and visual arts. More broadly, informed by our community’s priorities, and with a strong commitment to public education, diversity, equity, and inclusion, I will work to: - Prioritize initiatives and changes that will lead to a more equitable public school system for all students. - Ensure New York City schools receive their fair share of funding to guarantee all students an equitable opportunity to learn. - Change New York City’s public education system’s governance and increase transparency and accountability to give parents and community members a stronger voice in the system. |
What is your plan to address the health care needs of the city's many communities? | Working at a community health clinic in the central Bronx, I saw on a daily basis the impact of the health disparities in communities of color and low income communities. Poor health impacts all facets of one’s life, from the ability to learn in school, to the ability to function in a job. We know that poverty, environmental pollutants and adverse childhood experiences lead to higher rates of heart disease, cancer, substance abuse and diabetes in adulthood. Addressing the roots of what leads to poor health is an essential part of rebuilding a just and equitable New York City. Why do Bronx health outcomes rank dead last among New York’s 62 counties? Because for decades, our residents’ health and well-being have suffered due to lack of access to healthy food; good housing; clean air; well-paid jobs; educational opportunities; and quality, affordable health care. Underlying these challenges is a system of racism and disinvestment in our communities that has continued through this current crisis. As a City Council Member, I will fight alongside the residents of DIstrict 11 to ensure that all New Yorkers can live, work, play, and worship in neighborhoods that support their physical, mental, and emotional health. This will require a laser focus on the root causes of racial health disparities AND fixing our unequal and inadequate health care system: Reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and the high burden of chronic disease in District 11 by addressing the social and environmental factors underlying them. Ensure everyone has access to patient-centered, coordinated, high quality health. Address the racial disparities in maternal health. |
What are your plans for supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers? | To support incarcerated and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers we need to disrupt the pipelines that lead people into the system. We need an upriver approach to addressing mass incarceration, focusing on poverty, trans-generation trauma, and the school to prison pipeline. I support alternatives to incarceration whenever possible and support funding programs that keep people out of prison and jail. We also need to fund programs for people while they are in prison so that when they get out, they have the education and skills needed so they can thrive and break the cycle. Philosophically, I support the “No New Jails” movement. It does not make sense to spend billions, putting money into developers hands, to build new jails when the communities most impacted by the jails need that money to end poverty, increase education and recover from COVID-19. At the same time, I feel there needs to be more research into solutions ensuring the safety of IDV and sexual abuse victims. |
Share a link to your website and/or campaign platform | www.abigail4thebronx.com // on social media: @Abigail4theBX |